The public comment period on the Army Corps of Engineers’ Interim Report for the Buffalo Bayou and Tributaries is set to close on November 2. It is important to participate because this is a huge project with profound implications for our city. For example, Alternative 6 “Buffalo Bayou Channel Improvements” would widen and deepen Buffalo Bayou from Highway 6 down to 1500 feet beyond Studemont Street, with major impacts on both Memorial Park and Buffalo Bayou Park.
A typical cross-section of the project would be 70 feet wide at the bottom and 230 feet wide at the top. [Compare this with the current width of Buffalo Bayou at Studemont Street (100 feet) and the distance from the north side hike and bike path to the south side hike and bike path (150 feet).] The channel would be lined with articulated concrete blocks “allowing for the establishment of turf within the blocks cells to increase stability and creating a more environmentally acceptable environmental appearance.”
The final public information and comment session with officials from the Army Corps of Engineers and the Harris County Flood Control District will be held online, beginning at 1:00 PM on Monday October 26. Follow this link for instructions on how you can take part.
To get up to speed on this issue quickly, view the videos of Steve Robinson’s (Houston Stronger) summary of the project and Mary Anne Piacentini’s (Katy Prairie Conservancy) review of alternatives. Also, a draft op-ed article for the Houston Chronicle is attached below. You can see that representatives of Houston’s business, legal, environmental, and academic communities are all expressing serious concern over this report.
In preparing your comments, you are not limited to considering only the alternatives as they currently appear in the report. In particular, it would be appropriate to say that the alternatives that are presented are unacceptable and that previously discarded or completely new alternatives should be evaluated going forward. In particular, you might request:
■ An extension of the comment period until December 31, 2020 to allow adequate time for analysis, and
■ Release of sufficient data and modeling to allow outside experts to assess the report’s conclusions and its decision not to maintain alternatives such as tunneling or excavation within the Addicks and Barker Reservoirs to increase their storage capacity.
If you have ever paddled Buffalo Bayou or used the hike and bike trails that run along it, you might want to say what you think the effect of the project would be on the recreational, scenic, and public health values of Buffalo Bayou.
More information is also available on the Conservation Forum.